Optical Allusions

In English, most of your basic optical aids have a name assembled as a compound using the word glass. Maybe we could simply translate these.

On the other hand, most of these devices are easily depicted as themselves, and some of them carry clear metaphorical meanings as well. If you came to a website that had no words whatsoever, but a series of icons instead, you'd still guess that clicking the magnifying glass would search or zoom, the sunglasses would display the cool stuff, the microscope would take you to Science instead of History or Literature.

Device		-glass Compound			Pure Illustration		As Visual Metaphor
mirror		looking glass					vanity
glasses		eyeglasses					look, read
telescope		spyglass					astronomy; Also, a verbal metaphor for getting smaller by sliding one part into another.
(same)		magnifying glass					look, search
(same)		sunglasses					cool
microscope		(none ?)					science
binoculars		field glasses					search, find

Here are a few English words and idioms that have been built using basic optical roots. We may be able to translate these words into glyph combos that use the symbol .

• LOOK
  • From English look
    • looking glass (mirror)
    • lookout (watchman)
    • outlook (expectation)
    • overlook (ignore)
  • From Latin specto
    • aspect: "look toward"
    • auspices: "bird look"
    • despise: "look down"
      • despicable
    • expect: "look out"
    • inspect: "look into"
    • perspective: "look through"
    • prospect: "look forward"
    • retrospect:
    • respect
    • especially: through French, from special
      • special, specific: from species
        • species: "thing looked at, appearance, model, ideal"
    • spectacle: "watching"
    • spectator: "watcher"
    • spectrum, spectre: "appearance, apparition"
    • speculate: "watchtower, lookout"
    • spice: from species. This word began meaning "item", then "item of cargo", then the major item of cargo on ships from the Orient.
    • suspect: "look up"
  • From Greek skopo
    • bishop: battered down from episkopos.
      • episcopal: "look over"
    • kaleidoscope: "look pretty"
    • microscope: "look small"
    • periscope: "look around"
    • telescope: "look far"
• SEEK
  • From the English seek
    • beseech (beg)
  • From the Latin quaerere
    • acquire: "seek toward"
    • conquer: "search for, collect"
    • inquire: "seek into"
    • require, request

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Last updated October 2003

Copyright © 2003 Matthew White